Another NA ***RESTORATION***

[Natehd9]

As promised some photos of the plumbing install.

Took today off work (30th birthday present to myself!) Should hopefully finish the install today...

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Excuse the mess, really should spend half a day having a thorough sort out, just keep getting excited about other things...

This is the first connection point, will be installing two more on the rear and opposite walls of the garage.

Also got a tidy stack of new tools for my birthday!

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[blackyb]

Garage size envy here.

Wish I could knock mine down and rebuild it bigger but that would mean knocking the neighbours house down.

Enjoying the read.

[Natehd9]

Pleased to say I've had a very productive day! Getting whole days working on the car are few and far between as I'm still working almost every day so like to spend my weekends with my wife (an NHS worker so she's always working too!)

Finished up plumbing the air ring main, working back from the last leg gave all the joints a good nip, opened up the tap from the compressor and... No leaks!

The compressor sits in a separate room so the door can be shut meaning it's not too noisy when it's running, the ring has 3 drop legs with quick release connections, there are a couple of other drop legs for the regulator and an inline filter, all pipework has been installed with a drop to ensure moisture in the line runs to the nearest drain leg.

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Took a bit of time putting thread sealant on all the quick connects to the air tools, gave each a quick run, very pleased!

My dad had an old shotblaster sat at the back of the garage, dug it out, gave it a clean up and have given it it's first run in however long it's been!

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To give an idea of how it started, here's the front subframe which will be getting the same treatment tomorrow!

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The blaster ran out of blast media and it was getting dark so decided to call it a day, definitely don't want to be doing this inside!

Not sure how I'm going to blast the underside of the car, either tent out the garage with polythene sheet, or wheel the rig outside.... I'm sure I'll come up with something

[Lumphammer]

Happy birthday for a few days ago Nate, hope you took time out for a few beers

Very nice air setup, that's a lovely garage too - see how the axe has pride of place!!

How much blasting media do you go through using it outside like that? Subframe will come up a treat with some POR15

[Natehd9]

Sorry, should have updated this a few days ago!

Finished shot blasting the subframes, the front came up way nicer than the rear!

Took about 3 bags of grit in the end, quite wasteful, but without the correct PPE I would definitely not be doing it indoors so can't be helped unfortunately!

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They've come up great, so I'm really pleased with that.

Started reinstalling wishbones, but where I've pressed the inner collars has distorted some of the bushes so will have to spend some time 'convincing' them back in, or strip the bushes again and redo it with my more effective press set up!

Didn't get any photos, but spent a couple of hours last night getting started on the drivers side sill, starting with the front panel of the rear arch (confusing!)

I was wondering if anyone would be able to tell me where I could find a section for the bottom of the rear arches on both sides, seems a waste to buy a whole arch panel when I only need the bottom section from the bottom of the door and below...

[Mazda Mender]

Contact Autolinkmx5 useing menders discount code.
M-m

[Lumphammer]

They're looking superb Nate. I share your pain of not being able to buy decent masks at the moment, never seen a single disposable mask used so many times!!

[Natehd9]

Thanks for the kind words Tom, they're definitely better than they were!

I think unfortunately I'm going to have to remove and repress the bushes, the arms really don't want to go back into the subframes as they are at the moment!

Hopefully I'll get back over to the car tomorrow evening, going to crack on with the bodywork for the time being I think...

On a side note I've started another of my side-projects... I've loved chaser indicators (like you see on new Audis and Fords) ever since first seeing them so after doing a lot of research I've decided that I'm just going to make my own, SIDE-PROJECT!

Bought an Arduino clone from Amazon and I'm slowly teaching myself coding, then going to build new indicators along with some other custom stuff (emergency brake lights, etc)

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Not much of an update, but you know!

Will get some photos of the bodywork tomorrow, more fighting with the arches!

[John&Luke]

Good work on the subframes. Re your wishbone bushes, are you reusing the old bushes or replacing? Poly bushes or rubber?

When it comes to your bodywork the best investment is a pair of scissors and some light weight card. Having learnt the hardway it’s always better to make card templates/ pattens before committing to metal.

Making a card pattern before committing to cut anything gives you the benefit of a practice before the real thing.

Would be very interested in seeing the progress of your clone indicator project

[Natehd9]

Finally managed to get on with some bodywork yesterday!

The aim of the day was to start digging into the crusty bits, starting with the driver's side rear wheel well, which looked something like this (I'd already spent about two hours on spot welds and with the air saw at this point, don't seem to have any photos of it 'as found')

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After several more hours trying to find all the spot welds I was presented with this:

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Unfortunately more crust was hiding behind the panel, more cutting and drilling required!

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The upshoot of this was as the first area I would have to be forming my own panel, these are at least out of sight! More cutting, drilling and welding gave this:

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Now for this blighter

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All patched up:

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Still needs a little bit of dressing up, but I'll get to that once the sill is off and the full picture is available...

So I rolled the car so it's back level and removed the doors

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That little lot took the whole day (from 1 until about 7, anyway...)

So the next step is working along the driver's side sill removing all the spot welds and cutting out the panel to line up with the new pattern part, having looked through the hole made in the arch I can see there is a bit of crust in the inner arch, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

[Mazda Mender]

And the pics are the correct way too......


M-m

[Natehd9]

And the pics are the correct way too......


M-m

Yeah, new phone seems to have resolved the issue

[Lumphammer]

Very nice Nate, how much rot does it have on the inner sil?

[Natehd9]

Very nice Nate, how much rot does it have on the inner sil?

there's a reasonable amount about 8 inches forward of the arch so I suspect there will be some more grinder and fabbing time before the new panels can be put together, rather new metal than Kurust if I can avoid it!

There is someone I've found relatively local to me that makes up the lower sill sections so you don't need to chop up a whole replacement arch panel, but they're closed due to the pandemic, I'm on their wait-list so if they open before I reach that stage i'll use their panels, they look better than what I could make!

[Natehd9]

Had a pretty decent day of it yesterday, started off with this:

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Crusty and unpleasant at the front and rear, after a clean up the historic 'repair' on the rear section just got more ugly!

So, time to get to work with the autopunch, drill bit and spot weld bit

Took a good bit of time to do all the ones that join the top and bottom of the panel to the monocoque, but the panel didn't budge, so off I went with the angle grinder and wire wheel bit in search of the rest of the spot welds.

The approach only got me so far as some of the spots had a pretty seamless appearance (surprising from the Mazda factory!) So I ended up chopping the sill off on sections, starting at the front:

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Then a chunk off the back:

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This is why you don't chop back a bit and plate over, just hides the problem!

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Just a ticking timebomb waiting to undo any hard work put in!

Bit more time on the back got to this:

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So that'll need replacing...

Looks like I'll need to replace 6-8 inches of the inner sill section as it's a bit crusty too...

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After some more drilling of the various hidden spot welds we got to this:

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Having looked through all of the holes the inner looks really good other than right at the back so that's reassuring, going to pump a load of degreaser in there and make sure they're fully clean so that the cavity wax can do its job when we get to that stage

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To finish the day I spent a half hour or so cleaning up the spot welds with a flap disk and then etch priming to protect everything id exposed

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I've ordered new rear wings to replace the lower section that meets the sills so will hopefully make a start on putting it back together in the next week or so, fingers crossed!

Really satisfying work, just takes a long time to get it right!